customer service

Manners matter.

Mamas all over the word just shouted AMEN in solidarity to that statement, am I right?
Having good manners is something we teach our children from a very young age as an important life skill.

Manners matter.

So why don’t we exercise this same focus on having good manners in our every day business? I have been in this industry a very long time and it never ceases to amaze me some of the things I see and hear about people doing in their business and how they treat paying customers. I just want to slap them in the back of the head (mama style) and say “Didn’t your mama teach you any manners?”

Let’s chat about six customer service manners that I think we need to work on in the direct sales industry:

“My pleasure”

Bet you can’t guess what my favorite restaurant is? They are notorious for saying “my pleasure” every time you say thank you to them. My kids actually turn it into a game when we go there, every “my pleasure” they receive is a point and they try to see who can get the most points in a visit. I find it very comical, but I am also very impressed with the level of service that comes with a simple “my pleasure”. That simple phrase strikes me as servant leadership with a smile. How often do we practice servant leadership with a smile in our business?

“Thanks for choosing me”

This is another customer service phrase that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Now, it’s usually my auto repair guy that’s saying it at check out, but it’s a phrase that catches my attention every time. It isn’t just a “thanks”, it is a “thanks for choosing us”, their recognition that I do have a choice of who I do business with and I chose them. How often are we saying something similar to our customers? They have thousands of consultants to choose from in your company and tens of thousands to choose from in the industry as a whole, including your competitors (#hello). And they chose YOU to do business with. Are you recognizing that?

“What is most convenient for you?”

This is like the hallelujah chorus to a mom of toddlers! This simple phrase could win my business for life. A business that is willing to find a time that is convenient for me and my crazy lifestyle will always receive referrals from me. This phrase makes me as the consumer feel like I am made a priority, my time is a priority to them and they want to honor that. How are we doing this with our Hostesses and potential recruits? Is this a phrase you use? It is a phrase I plan to use more often in my own business.

“You made my day!”

This phrase just makes my heart swell. My kids are I were at a restaurant for lunch (we actually went inside – whaaaat?) and before I left I put a smiley face rock on top of her tip. The kids had painted 100 of these smiley face rocks to leave all over town, we have a huge ziplock bag of them in the car and we leave them everywhere. As I am scooting everyone out the door of the restaurant the server literally runs up to me with a huge smile on her face, looks me dead in the eyes and says “you just made my day’! My heart actually swelled standing there, I could feel it swell up inside of me and my kids talked about that encounter the entire way home, they shared it with their grandparents, and it comes up again and again as we leave smiley rocks all over town. I wonder how often we acknowledge the amazing things our hostess and customers do? A simple “you made my day” can go so far in making them feel great and building that relationship with them.

“I’m on it!”

My assistant is a freaking rockstar! My absolute favorite phrase that she says to me is “I’m on it!” That phrase speaks volumes about who she is and her willingness to get things done for me quickly and excitedly! I love that excitement that I “hear” her say (via messaging) that she is on whatever project I have given her to do. Not an “okay” or a “will do”, but an I’M ON IT! Do you hear and feel the difference? I think our customers and hostesses need to hear some more excitement from us, they need to hear the “I’m on it” so they know that you are there to assist them AND you are excited about it!

“That is not available, however…”

For the love of Direct sales, do not EVER tell a customer “NO”. No is such a negative word with icky ucky feelings. When a customer says, “Do you have smelly oranges?” And you reply back with a flat NO…or “no we do not”…you deserve to lose a sale! How about, “My apologies, we are currently out of smelly oranges. However, most of my customers who love smelly oranges really love our stinky citrus. Here’s a link to see if that may suit what you’re looking for (insert stupid smelly link).”

You are not in the business of short comebacks and you certainly are not in the business of NO’s. It’s called customer SERVICE because you SERVE them. So often we resort to quick replies, when we need to be thinking about building trust, making them SMILE, and going above and beyond in every opportunity to serve them.

Our mamas taught us good manners, we need to start using those good manners to deliver better customer service to our Hostesses and Customers.

Treat others how you want to be treated, right? These 6 phrases above reflect how I want to be treated, so I am upping my game on how I am treating others with intention and purpose. I challenge you to join me in adding these 6 simple phrases into your business and see what happens!

Since it’s Mother’s Day month, how about a quick giggle from my girl, Anita Renfroe!

Giving thanks is not something I take lightly! Each year, I send this letter to my hostesses:

It’s so important to say THANK YOU. Your customers and hostesses are the ones who support and maintain your business. And they should know how much you appreciate them.

You will never go wrong by providing top notch customer service. Because seriously…how many of these letters do you think they’ll get? Probably not many. Maybe only ONE. And they will always remember that extra touch, that extra degree, the extra mile YOU went to say thank you.

I highly encourage you to come up with your own letter and let everyone know how much you appreciate all the support they showed for you and your business this year!

Using Dropbox for my product cards has been a lifesaver on so many different occasions.

Let me tell you what it is

Get the app on your phone AND computer

And then never be unprepared again!

Watch this quick video to show you how easily I can pull up the product cards from my phone:

So what is DropBox?

Dropbox is a file sharing system. It’s FREE.

You can put this on your computer and keep all files and folders in this “app” so that no matter where you’re at, or whatever device you’re on, you can always access your files on the go!

And let’s not forget to mention, let’s say your computer crashes (insert GASP!). You can still access any files and folders you kept on dropbox. So I store ALL my folders and files on my Dropbox.

It acts just like storing it on your “desktop” on your computer. Instead of “save to desktop”….you “save to dropbox”. EASY.

This might also keep you out of Facebook Jail!

I am currently in Facebook jail AGAIN because I uploaded these product cards to 2 team pages. It doesn’t like you doing anything twice, none the less a ton of pictures. So if you’d like to keep yourself out of Facebook Jail, learn from me! Use THIS to share things with your team. Each folder has the option to make it private or get a “sharable” link. Just like OneDrive or Google Drive.

Now how do I use it for product cards?

I downloaded the entire catalog’s product cards and have access to them in ONE click from my phone. And the best part? They’re automatically put into alphabetical order in drop box. So when someone asks to see what patterns the zip top organizing utility totes come in…I just pull that product card and text it to them. Or someone orders a product in a pattern that doesn’t exist…I just just send them the product card with the patterns that ARE available. SO easy. And so productive when it comes to your time, and most importantly, your CUSTOMER SERVICE! Here is what the Drop Box app looks like:

You’ll want to download Dropbox on your computer first. Then load all of your current folders, into your Dropbox folder. Just Google Dropbox!

And here is what Dropbox looks like from my phone. All my folders on my computer easily accessed right from my phone! This is the folder I had for the Spring product cards. Now I have my fall product cards folder.

Here is a folder with all FALL PRODUCT CARD graphics so you can start your OWN:)

You know when someone messages you and asks you for more information on booking a party?

And you’re right in the middle of a manicure, or soccer practice, or waiting in line at Walmart (you’re gonna be there awhile). Well…here’s a way for you to copy and paste a message to WOW your customers and seal the deal!

Check out this quick video:

So WHY would you want to create email drafts and templates for your Thirty-One business?

You’re going to look like a professional:

When you email your customer back in a SHORT amount of time, with this AMAZING and informative email…they’re gonna be like…”Man, this lady is good”. And that’s exactly what you want. To look like the BOSS you are.

You’re not going to FORGET:

How many times have you been at the grocery store and gotten a message. And you’re like…”crap. I’ll answer that when I get home”. 2 days later…you realize you forgot. Your moment to look and act like a professional is GONE.

You’re going to save yourself TIME:

How much time does it take for you to create the same daggone information to send each time? Too much time. It’s stressful, you’re in a hurry, and it’s a PAIN. Now when you copy and paste this message for the first time (and every time after), you’re gonna be like…”yeah, i know I’m the boss.”

You’re not going to leave important information out:

How many times are you in a hurry to send something and you forget to put something in there? Like a file, or the link to your website, or the customer special? And then you have to email them back. Or…you just say “screw it”. And don’t send it at all. Don’t be that guy!

Want to work your business like a rock star? Here are 5 files you can print and work 20 minutes a day on FOCUSED areas of your business for:

Recruiting

Booking

Customer Service

Marketing

Hostess Coaching

Here is an example of one of the days/files:

These tasks are not to ALL be completed each day, but to give you something to do when you’re STUCK. So pick one task, if you finish it in 5 minutes, do another. If it takes you 20 minutes, you’re done!

You all have seen the Power Hour files I have created…but THIS is a whole new ball game to keep you on task every single day.

Each one is for a specific day with specific tasks to keep you focused on the income producing activities you need to be doing CONSISTENTLY in your Thirty-One business!

Make sure you watch this quick video to explain how to effectively use them to:

increase recruiting

increase bookings

provide top notch customer service

increase your marketing efforts

provide top notch hostess coaching

I created these files to serve my team.

That’s my goal in everything. To make this business works for everyone who is willing to WORK. And to prove to them, that anyone can work their business in 20 minutes a day of focused work on one aspect of their business.

Now, when I have a team member who is struggling to organize their time and business, I have something to give them. And now…you do too:)

How about planting some booking seeds with a HUGE dose of customer service?

Here’s the plan! The idea for this image came from Emily Trowbridge, so we have her to thank! I just added my plan and words to make it easy for YOU!

On the same day of each month, let’s say March 25th…

I go to my back office and pull all orders from February. And then I send this text message to every customer I have a phone # for.

It’s asking them:

If there was anything wrong with their order

If they were interested in booking

and you could even put the current customer special in case they simply wanted to place a new order

I believe my message with this picture will be:

Hi there! Just checking in to make sure you love your product as much as I do and see if you were able to get everything you wanted last month? Because I’d love to help you earn some more for FREE:)

This is going to take CONSISTENT COMMITMENT. I chose the 25th because everyone from the previous month should already have their product. Think of the possibilities of follow up and customer service. #TopNotch right? 🙂

Here’s my graphic and you can either create your own or Night Owl Custom Design can make one for you. Super easy! I’m not very good at graphics, so she can do it for me. Saves me time…which = $$$ in my world.

Three of my goals this year are:

So one thing I’ve been working on is my “thank you” cards. I normally mail thank you cards to my guests who order and my hostesses. However, this takes a lot of time. It costs me postage. And I don’t really “see” a return from this regarding further communication. And if you haven’t noticed, in our back office, if someone orders as a guest on a party-it changes their address to the hostesses if it is shipped to the hostess, once the party is submitted. So I have to capture those before I submit the party in order to do this.

So I’ve been working on these images to TEXT my hostesses and my guests right after the party. But here’s the KICKER:

I’m adding the LINK to my customer page along with the text. So NOW…I can get them added to my customer page if they want!

This brings back simple/easy/fun. It also shows my face so they get to see ME. Maybe they ordered online and don’t know who the heck I am. And I don’t know about you…but if I got a text with a link…It would take everything I had not to click on it. A link just SCREAMS-CLICK ON ME!

I’ve made them for all types of orders! I just used www.picmonkey.com to create those images. And then changed the wording just a bit for each one. So by using these images to text to my customers and hostesses I’ll be able to do these 5 things:

save money/postage

let them see my “face”

send a genuine “thank you” in a timely manner

and hopefully have those ladies click on the link and join my customer page so I can stay connected with them and in FRONT of them more often!

When you focus on something, you expand it. And when you focus on marketing, you will:

Increase sales by reaching out to new and old customers

Increase bookings and recruits by referrals. Because everyone knows YOU sell Thirty-One and are open for business

Have your customers spreading your business for you through social media avenues

And create an environment in your community where YOU are the “go to” girl!

I have compiled a list of tasks you can work on during your 20 minutes of Marketing. It’s SO easy. But you have to be committed to your business and focus on expanding your efforts to increase your marketing to your community (online as well as locally). You’ll find the file below. You can print the form and literally just go down the list when you need to work on your marketing for that 20 minutes. You have officially lost your excuse NOT to work on marketing, because I’ve given you an entire sheet of things to work on!

And let me be very clear. Just because you do not know HOW to do Instagram, or Twitter, or Pinterest…that’s not an excuse. You can use this 20 minutes to research it and DO IT! You will learn along the way.

This is a 5 part series, so you’ll want to check out all 5 posts on my main blog page this week. If you haven’t subscribed to my blog, now would be a great time to do so! So you don’t miss a single post. You’ll have all 5 files to work your business successfully by the end of this week.

Watch this quick video on some great ideas and what I do with my Marketing time:

The two questions I’m going to ask you over and over, stem from a quote I heard a couple weeks ago:

A committed heart will always find a way. A non-committed heart will always find an excuse.

Are you committed?

And how much time do you have to devote to your business a day?

All it takes is 20 minutes a day working one aspect of your business. Here’s an example:

Monday: Hostess Coaching

Tuesday: Booking

Wednesday: Customer Service

Thursday: Recruiting

Friday: Marketing

Watch the video above and then use this file to create a time efficient and EFFECTIVE system to market your business to your customers in just 20 minutes a week: http://1drv.ms/1Ooaodj